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Titus Lucretius Caro (Pompeii, 99 BC – Rome, 55 BC) preaches “the remedy of serenity of mind.” Philosopher and poet, his literary language was Latin. His work De rerum Natura is considered the greatest didactic philosophical poem in the Latin world and all Western literature.
Very little is known about Lucretius’s life. The three main sources of his life are three authors: Saint Jerome, Donatus and Cicero. The only certainty is that he was a friend of Gaius Memmius, to whom he dedicated the poem.
His work De Rerum Natura had considerable influence on classical Roman poets, particularly Virgil (Aeneid and Georgics) and Horace. His work was considered virtually missing during the Middle Ages, but it was rediscovered in 1417 in a German monastery by Poggio Bracciolini and had an important role in the development of atomism and modern science, being of great influence on authors such as Giordano Bruno, Giambattista Vico , Nicolás Machiavelli or Michel de Montaigne. Thanks to Lucretius, and also Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus’ ideas survived into the Modern Age.
De Rerum Natura defends the philosophy of Epicurus and the atomistic physics of Democritus and Leucippus. His work is considered the greatest didactic philosophical poem in the Latin world and all Western literature. It is a philosophical-didactic poem, written in the 1st century BC.
Lucretius tries to preach the Epicurean gospel with exalted faith, to find “the rational knowledge of nature”, “the remedy for serenity of mind.”
Divided into six books, it proclaims the reality of the universe and attempts to free man from his fear of death and the gods. Lucretius exposes the philosophical doctrines of Epicureanism, the atomistic physics of Democritus through poetic language and traditional metaphors.
It is possibly the greatest work of Roman poetry and, without a doubt, one of the greatest attempts aimed at understanding the reality of the world and humanity.
After a brief passage on the conception of divinity according to Lucretius, he encourages his friend to study true reason and promises to tell him about the essence of reality as a whole and reveal the origin of things.
Then follows the praise of Epicurus without mentioning his name (Graius homo, “a Greek man”), presented as the true teacher, superior to other men.
It has the great merit of having freed humanity from the religious fear that arises from the belief in the possibility of punishment of the soul after death and in divine intervention in the affairs of the world.
With his rational investigation of nature, he demonstrated that the gods exist in the “interworlds”, but have no interest in human affairs: therefore, man can venerate them, but not attribute to them the responsibility of those phenomena, which continue, in change, the inflexible ones of nature.
Although De rerum natura is a work dedicated to physics, Lucretius writes “as a complete Epicurean, offering his reader not only a cosmological understanding, but also the complete recipe for happiness.”
The poem extols the tranquility and pleasure (voluptas) of the quiet life achievable by everyone and Epicurus as savior by presenting the true path to happiness by driving away the fear of death and the superstition of the gods:
Oh you who from the vast darkness were the first to raise
A bright light, illuminating the blessings of life,
O glory of the Greek race, it is you whom I follow,
Tracing in your clearly marked footprints my own firm steps,
Not as a contending rival, but for love, for I long to imitate you.
Why must the swallow compete with the swan?
Why does a small child with thin limbs
Would you dare to match the steps with a powerful steed?
The spirit has desires such as greed, ambition, honor, which must be rejected. Lucretius refers in his poem to the first three maxims of the Epicurean tetrapharmaco: “Do not fear the gods, do not worry about death; what is good is easy to achieve, what is terrible is easy to endure.”
A beautiful passage from the work of Lucretius:
It is sweet, when over the vast sea the winds disturb the waters, to observe from land the great fatigue of others, not because it pleases their torment, but because it is sweet to see what evils you yourself have deprived yourself of. It is also sweet to contemplate great battles of war raging on the plain without you being part of the danger; but there is nothing more pleasant than to be alone in the heights of serenity, well fortified by the doctrine of the wise, from where you can protect yourself from the arrogance of others and see them err, here and there, wandering lost along the path of life, fighting in wit, rivaling in nobility of blood and striving night and day with incessant zeal to obtain great wealth and assume power. Oh miserable minds of men! Oh blind breasts! In what darkness of life and after how many great dangers does existence pass, whatever it may be!
Lucretius Nature
